Subject: One or two FSMs?

From: [email-masked] (Paul Brittain)
Date: Fri, 2 Sep 94 12:36:47 BST

Steve, Lakshman et al.

A separate explorer FSM appears to have the following advantages over a
combined FSM:

-       better clarity of NetBIOS session number handling
-       easier to review than if this handling is part of a larger FSM
-       less impact on existing FSM documentation.

Set against that, it makes it less easy to incorporate NQ/NR_cs support for
back-level switches, but that is not a main goal of this working group.

Given the proximity of our deadline, it seems better to me to concentrate our
review efforts on improving the clarity of the document.  Hence we should retain
a separate FSM for the explorer traffic rather than attempting a combined FSM.
We could still move to single FSM in V2 if the group wants to go that way, and
there is nothing to stop an implementer from producing his own combined FSM in
the meantime (though I hope they would post it!).

Therefore, I agree with Steve that a separate explorer FSM is the better
option, at least for V1.  V2 may introduce other, as yet unknown, FSM changes
that could push us in either direction.

Do we have any other opinions in the group?

Paul Brittain
Data Connection.